Keith Urban stunned the audience at the CMA Awards in Nashville on Monday by appearing onstage for a surprise duet with hostess Lainey Wilson.
The evening marked his first TV performance since it emerged in September that Urban had split from Nicole Kidman after 19 years of marriage.
In the wake of the divorce news, past clips have resurfaced of Urban’s cozy onstage antics with guitarist Maggie Baugh, 25, fueling romance rumors about them.
One video showed him pointing to Baugh as he sang: ‘I was born to love you’ in Las Vegas, while another was of him changing his lyric: ‘Baby I’ll be the fighter,’ to: ‘Maggie, I’ll be your guitar player,’ during a show in Chicago.
Now in the slipstream of the collapse of his marriage, Urban hit the stage at the start of the CMA Awards as part of Wilson’s opening medley of hit country songs.
The final number in her intro was Urban’s 1999 single Where the Blacktop Ends – and Urban himself showed up with his guitar to sing it with her.
Wilson began by going down into the audience to sing famous country songs with the people who originated them – for example Redneck Woman with Gretchen Wilson, Gunpowder and Lead with Miranda Lambert and A Bar Song (Tipsy) with Shaboozey.
But when she returned to the stage, the crowd received an unexpected treat as Urban materialized there to accompany her for Where the Blacktop Ends.
Prior to Wilson’s monologue, the CMA Awards this year had a cold-open in the form of Luke Combs giving a barnstorming rendition of his new song Back in the Saddle.
Rising bluegrass star Zach Top, who won Best New Artist, delighted the crowd with his song Guitar, a cut off his new album Ain’t In It for My Health.
Megan Moroney was the image of a bubblegum pop diva in a sparkly pink mini-dress speckled with gigantic sequins as she performed her new song 6 Months Later.
She was surrounded by scantily-clad backup dancers wearing matching pink ensembles, prancing across the stage while she sang.
Chris Stapleton then cemented his status as the king of the country music awards shows as he growled through Bad As I Used to Be, his song for Brad Pitt’s film F1.
For her song I Sit in Parks, which is about her insecurities about her biological clock ticking amid her galloping career, Kelsea Ballerini chose an evocative setting.
She was decked out in a glamorous full-length red frock not unsuited to the red carpet, while sitting on a swing and rocking back and forth like a child.
The Red Clay Strays, the band made up of Brandon Coleman, Andrew Bishop, Drew Nix, John Hall, Zach Rishel, Sevans Henderson, sang their fiery 2025 song People Hatin’ about the present polarized political landscape.